Today is the start of a book study led by Randy Hansen on ISTE’s SIGTE. We are reading Tony Bingham’s book The New Social Learning – A guide to transforming organizations through Social Media. I was interested in this topic for 2 reasons. I would like to see how I can help my school and my classes incorporate and effectively use social media to connect students, parents, teachers, administrators and myself for the sake of learning. Second, I really wanted to participate with a group in a book study as a student and learn ways that I could incorporate those types of learning avenues into professional development here in our district and area.
Discussion is also on Twitter at #ISTENewSL
I am reading the book on my iPad using the Kindle app. Through that, I have the ability to highlight key passages and make notes, then view them on one webpage. (This post tells you more about that process.)
From there, my own reflection on chapter 1 is documented below.
Notes (in yellow) are what I wrote while reading the passages.Highlights (in grey) are excerpts from the book that I found interesting and wanted to reflect on at a later time.
Thoughts (in blue) are my reflections from today on the notes and highlights that I made previously.
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NOTES and HIGHLIGHTS and my thoughts after reading the chapter.
the deepest, most enduring impact of social media might be on learning.Read more at location 156 How is this going to change our learning? I think it will have a grassroots spread as more teachers see there is value in learning themselves through this type of avenue.
For instance, this new, technology-enabled approach can supplement instruction with collaboration and co-creation and, in so doing, blur the boundary between the instructor and the instructed and enhance the experience of all. Students need to know that they can learn from each other as much as from the teacher. Education shouldn’t be about the recall of individual facts and regurgitation, but about learning together. There was a reference to how learning is about building networks and connections and that is so true. You have to build on what you know.
“Once you move away from the push of information to the pull of learning, you liberate creative Read more at location 171 This is probably the hardest thing for teachers to get comfortable with, but once you do, it is much more fun in class. I think it is easier to teach this way in some situations. It is all about comfort zones though.
By bringing together people who share interests, no matter their location or time zone, social media has the potential to transform the workplace into an environment where learning is as natural asRead more at location 188 By bringing students together, we tear down the walls of the classroom as well. Social media can be very powerful.
The NEW Social Learning Playground Rules….Read more at location 247 Note: What would a set of classroom participation rules look like if we created them in this model and the students were involved with the creation of them?
“It means you’re not alone. If you have a problem, if you need help, if you need to learn something new, there’s a team of people you can call on at any time.”Read more at location 272
People need to learn fast, as part of the ebb and flow of their jobs, not just on the rare occasion they are in a class.Read more at location 291
Social learning is what it sounds like—learning with and from others. It has been around for a long time and naturally occurs at conferences, in groups, and among old friends in a café as easily as it does in classroom exercises or among colleagues online who have never met in person. We experience it when we go down the hall to ask a question and when we post that same question on Twitter anticipating that someone will respond. While social media is technology used to engage three or more people and social learning is participating with others to make sense of new ideas, what’s new is how powerfully they work together. new ideas, what’s new is how powerfully they work together. SocialRead more at location 316 It is amazing the power of twitter chat sessions that educators are involved with. Imagine a large round table with hundreds of people sitting around it and having a conversation. That is #edchat. Maybe there are multiple conversations, but they all have value and they are all RECORDED so you can go back and review them, take your time in participating and respond and converse with one or many.
Note: Social learning is what I find on twitter to be the most enticing part about connecting with others . Edit this note
Prior to the Internet, the last technology that had any real effect on the way people sat down and talked together was the table.Read more at location 330
It acknowledges that learning happens with and through other people, as a matter of participating in a community, not just by acquiring knowledge.Read more at location 333
Note: How many times do we in a normal class setting allow children to learn things through someone other than the teacher? Edit this note
Social learning happens using social media tools and through extended access and conversations with all our connections—in our workplaces, our communities, and online. It happens when we keep the conversation going on a blog rich with comments, through coaching and mentoring, or even during a workout at the gym.Read more at location 334
Note: Social learning should extended beyond the constraints of the classroom walls and the time clock of the school day Edit this note
Training often gives people solutions to problems already solved. Collaboration addresses challenges no one has overcome before.Read more at location 347 How can we do more project based learning using collaboration with students around the world?
Note: Teacher grainy on tech should focus instead on solving the problems of the class not just introducing a new toy. Edit this note
It’s not at odds with formal education.Read more at location 368 So many people view social networking as an evil platform. In reality it is so much more than the 10 minutes of fame it gets on 20/20 for the evil people that use it for manipulative and devious deeds. It can enhance the classroom with so much more but some teachers are resistant to change the way they have done things. How can you fight the argument – “Our test scores are good, so why change?”
Teachers can also use social media before and after classes to capture and share everyone’s ideas.Read more at location 369 Backchannels can be used effectively for the shy kids to speak up in class and to ask questions and provide input. It can also be valuable for continuing the conversation outside the time and location constraints given in our days. Yes, face to face discussions and skills are valuable, but so can this type of extended learning.
Note: Anne Smith has done this effectively in her class by allowing kids to use it for discussions. Edit this note
Note: We need to model more social learning for our classes. Maybe more teachers need to learn social learning first and get out of the me in front of the class theory. Edit this note
Active participation is the keyRead more at location 405 We must include ways to engage students in their own learning. Too many students these days are passive about their learning and what they are interested in.
Note: This describe my use of twitter al lot of the time. But more important is gather, sort, organize and distribute. Skills kids need to know how to do. Edit this note
The 21st century mind is a collective mind where we access what we know in our friends’ and colleagues’ brains. Together we can be smarter and can address ever more challenging problems. What we store in our heads may not be as important as all that we can tap in our networks. Together we are better.Read more at location 417 How does this reshape the old formal traditional textbook driven classroom?
Communication and collaboration reached a tipping point with email and online forums, then instant messaging,Read more at location 439 If this was the tipping point socially, it doesn’t seem like it has reached education world fast enough. Some teachers still struggle with how to send email’s and to use it for basic communication. Does it take ‘required by law’ to be posted after it to ensure it happens?
Regardless of generation or gender, most employees no longer have someone staying at home to handle personal matters while they are at work. To take care of ourselves, we divide our energy and focus between work and home. Organizations that prohibit this through policy or technology controls become poor guardians of their employees and limit their capacity to attend to small items that mayRead more at location 498
Note: Think about a lockdown in terms of teachers if we require them to only think about school at school, does it then in turn make them think about only home at home? Somber students can't do this, but it might be required to be efficient and be able to work from anywhere. What if production is based on output instead of time. Would that be like standards based? Or apex. Do what you need to do to get the job done. Edit this note This is a shift in thinking to a new workforce that needs to be able to work anywhere, anytime. How many teachers use time at home to work? I work when waiting for doctor’s appointments, I work at night before bed, I work in the morning when I get up. If that lockdown mentality were in place at my school, I would be less likely to do that. And inhibited because of technology restrictions as well. I even get calls to my school phone forwarded to my cell phone when off site for the day.
“In many cases you aren’t giving up control—you are shifting it to someone else that you have confidence in,”Read more at location 553
Note: Shifting control to someone else you have confidence in- how many teachers place trust in their students? It is a dialogue that we need. What does the job force skills these days say about trust? Do we place trust in teachers to help raise our kids? We must if we want them in an education system. Edit this note
We are leading and influencing people and organizations.Read more at location 560
Note: We are becoming leaders. We need to emphasize that when talking to kids about their digital footprints. They will be a leader and a follower online. Twitter shows you who you are leading and who you are following. Who do you follow? Who do you lead? Why is it important to recognize those groups of people online? What can we do to reflect on our influences on those people and groups? Edit this note
Learning can easily occur anytime, anywhere, and in a variety of formats. It always has, but now it’s codified and easy for others to see.Read more at location 562
Note: How can we document our learning journey Edit this note And would it be beneficial to do so?
We define learning as the transformative process of taking in information that, when internalized and mixed with what we have experienced, changes what we know and builds on what we can do. It’s based on input, process, and reflection. It is what changes us.Read more at location 567 I love this definition of learning and have placed it on the door of my room.
To help see learning in a broader way, think of five people you communicate with and then identify at least three things you learned from each.Read more at location 579 This would be a great learning activity to do with students throughout the year.
when we connect with people, the exchange sticks with us. That engagement calls up something from within us or connects with an emotion, and that mental dance leaves a footprint we can walk in again.Read more at location 581 This was something I saw this weekend. KFC now has reusable plastic containers for their side dishes. Talk about “sticking” for a marking campaign. I think about them every time I see it when I use that container for storage. That exchange has stuck and I will think about that next time I drive by KFC.
Knowledge acquired but never put to use is usually forgotten.Read more at location 607 So true. Kids in my study hall ask about Chemistry and algebra and because I have not used them in my life, I have forgotten just about everything I learned in those classes.
heard a story of someone doing something that scares them.Read more at location 621 So many of our parents are afraid of the term social media or social networking because of what they hear on tv. There are parents who say they don’t want their teachers and children to be ‘friends’ on Facebook. I don’t understand that. You leave your kid alone with them in a classroom and things said and done in that room are not reordered. How can associating on Facebook be worse? How can you trust someone face to face with your child, but when it comes to bits and bytes that are stored and can be recovered and documented, you are afraid of that situation?
If someone puts inappropriate content on the office door, you don’t remove the door. If someone makes a tasteless joke over the telephone, you don’t take away the phone. Social tools are often held to higher standards than traditional business tools because they are new, and bad stories circulate—go viral—quickly.Read more at location 633
Note: This is what we need to tell parents about social media in school Rather than ban the use of social tools, educate people how to use them effectively for work. They are the future of collaboration and learning at work, so the more you prepare people for how to use the tools respectfully and how to apply good social practices, the better.Read more at location 635
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